Tom Degan: As disappointed as I may be with the performance of this president to date, I still thank goodness each and every day that John McCain is not sleeping in the Oval Office at this very moment and that Sarah Palin is not a 72-year-old heartbeat away from the presidency. Can you even imagine?

Michael Sigman: Early frontrunner Mitt Romney has spent the last four years approaching the Platonic ideal of the shameless panderer who, when expedient, adopts positions that are diametrically opposed to one another.

Walter Brasch: While most Tea Partiers are White, middle-aged or senior citizens who are angry but not violent, whenever there is violence, whenever there is racism, discrimination, or homophobia, there are Tea Party sympathizers present.

Tragedy in Tucson Arizona Congressional Representative Gabrielle Giffords has been shot. She was shot in the head as she was addressing constituents at a Tucson, Arizona stripmall. Congresswoman Giffords was immediately taken to a nearby hospital and is listed in critical condition. The Arizona representative was attending an event at a local stripmall in Arizona […]

Michael Sigman: So, to test the theory that my sense of self needn’t include the political shenanigans of the moment, my New Year’s resolutions are: a) To cut, by at least half, the time I spend following political news, polls, etc; and b) To actually do something — like organizing, phone banking or writing more for websites and newsletters.

Tom Degan: Listening to some of them defending the the secession ball was amusing, to say the least. In their minds, the War Between the States had not a thing to do with human bondage. It was all about “states rights”. Oh, brother!

Randy Shaw: Obama Press Secretary Robert Gibbs’ August 10 condemnation of “the professional left” will prove memorable, because it confirmed suspicions that Obama had come to detest his progressive base and resented its criticism.

Tina Dupuy: Nothing shatters one’s contentment more quickly than that ever-looping commercial in which a guy buys his wife a bow-wrapped $100K Lexus as a “surprise.” Every time it airs I think to myself, “My husband would have to put just that bow on layaway, and I’d still KNOW.”

Andrea Nill: Immediately before the vote failed, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) took the Senate floor to tell the young DREAMers who have come to his office that they were “wasting their time” because the border hasn’t been secured.

Wellness

Carole Bartolotto: The problem with concluding that GMOs are safe is that the argument for their safety rests solely on animal studies. These studies are offered as evidence that the debate over GMOs is over. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Environmentalism

Margo McCall: There’s increasing evidence that adopting a plant-based diet is better for human health, the planet, and of course for the more than 9 billion animals that are killed for consumption each year in the U.S alone.